| | Switch to: Europe, USA, New Zealand, Antarctica Credit: NOAA/Ovation Planetary K-index Now: Kp= 2 quiet 24-hr max: Kp= 4 unsettled explanation | more data Interplanetary Mag. Field Btotal: 6.6 nT Bz: 2.9 nT north more data: ACE, DSCOVR Updated: Today at 2350 UT Coronal Holes: 30 Nov 17 Earth is inside a stream of solar wind flowing from the indicated coronal hole. Credit: SDO/AIA Noctilucent Clouds Latest images from NASA's AIM spacecraft show that the 2017 northern summer season for noctilucent clouds has finished. Switch view: Europe, USA, Asia, Polar Updated at: 09-03-2017 01:55:03 SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts | | Updated at: 2017 Nov 29 2200 UTC FLARE | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | CLASS M | 01 % | 01 % | CLASS X | 01 % | 01 % | Geomagnetic Storms: Probabilities for significant disturbances in Earth's magnetic field are given for three activity levels: active, minor storm, severe storm Updated at: 2017 Nov 29 2200 UTC Mid-latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 25 % | 15 % | MINOR | 10 % | 05 % | SEVERE | 01 % | 01 % | High latitudes | 0-24 hr | 24-48 hr | ACTIVE | 15 % | 15 % | MINOR | 30 % | 20 % | SEVERE | 35 % | 20 % | | | | | | | | | | | | All-inclusive Northern Lights trips in Tromsø, Norway. Small groups, big experiences! Highly qualified guides ensure unique and unforgettable adventures with a personal touch. Visit Explore the Arctic | | | CME MISSES EARTH: A coronal mass ejection (CME) hurled into space days ago by a magnetic explosion on the sun was supposed to sideswipe Earth's magnetic field on Nov. 29th. Instead, it missed. NOAA forecasters have therefore reduced the odds of a G1-class geomagnetic storm to 30%. This remaining chance is due to a stream of solar wind crossing Earth's path on Nov. 30th. Free: Aurora Alerts. BUT WHO NEEDS A CME? On Nov. 29th, just as the CME was missing Earth, auroras appeared in the skies over Abisko, Sweden. Photographer Oliver Wright had already gone to bed, but when he saw a ribbon of green appear on the Lights Over Lapland webcam, he dressed and headed out to the shore of Lake Torneträsk. Wright had a special shot in mind: "Earlier in the day I found some amazing ice sculptures by the lake," he explains. "These had been caused by a huge storm whilst it was -10C. The ice here is actually covering a small tree even though it looks an alien landscape." Without a CME, what caused the auroras? At the time of the display, Earth was making first contact with a stream of solar wind flowing from a fissure in the sun's atmosphere--a stream that may yet cause a G1-class geomagnetic storm on Nov. 30th If it does, another trip to the frozen forest of Abisko may be in the offing. Stay tuned. Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery CIRCULAR MAGNETIC FILAMENT: For nearly two weeks, astronomers have watched a remarkable filament of magnetism glide across the face of the sun. Most filaments on the sun are roughly linear. This one, however, is shaped like a circle more than 125,000 km in diameter. Today, the Great Round Filament is rotating over the sun's western limb, where Randy Shivak of Estero, Florida, photographed it in profile: "Watching the filament go over the horizon is a great way to study its structure," says Shivak. "I took the picture using my Astro-Physics 152mm F8 refracting telescope, a Daystar Quantum PE .5 angstrom filter, and a ZWO asi174mm video camera." The unusual structure of this filament may be unstable. Magnetic fields curling back on themselves in this fashion can criss, cross, and explode--a process known as "magnetic reconnection." An explosion on the sun's limb would be spectacular indeed. Monitoring is encouraged. Realtime Space Weather Photo Gallery THE CHRISTMAS SPACE PICKLE: The Christmas pickle is a holiday tradition in the United States. Make way for a new tradition: The Christmas Space Pickle! To raise money for their cosmic ray research, the students of Earth to Sky Calculus have flown a payload full of the glass pickle ornaments to the stratosphere, and you can have one for your own tree. Priced at $79.95, each space-faring gherkin comes with a Christmas card showing your ornament in space. The inside flap tells the story of the pickle's flight and confirms that the pickle has traveled to the edge of space and back again. It also comes with a bonus photo of the pickle in the stratosphere. Hang it on your Christmas tree alongside the pickle itself to impress holiday visitors! Far Out Gifts: Earth to Sky Store All proceeds support hands-on STEM education Realtime Aurora Photo Gallery Every night, a network of NASA all-sky cameras scans the skies above the United States for meteoritic fireballs. Automated software maintained by NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office calculates their orbits, velocity, penetration depth in Earth's atmosphere and many other characteristics. Daily results are presented here on Spaceweather.com. On Nov. 30, 2017, the network reported 6 fireballs. (6 sporadics) In this diagram of the inner solar system, all of the fireball orbits intersect at a single point--Earth. The orbits are color-coded by velocity, from slow (red) to fast (blue). [Larger image] [movies] Potentially Hazardous Asteroids ( PHAs) are space rocks larger than approximately 100m that can come closer to Earth than 0.05 AU. None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although astronomers are finding new ones all the time. On November 30, 2017 there were 1869 potentially hazardous asteroids. | Recent & Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters: Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) | 2017 WE28 | 2017-Nov-24 | 5.8 LD | 9.3 | 16 | 2017 VZ14 | 2017-Nov-24 | 3.2 LD | 8.4 | 33 | 2017 WZ13 | 2017-Nov-25 | 6.9 LD | 11 | 18 | 2017 WT12 | 2017-Nov-25 | 3 LD | 14.7 | 13 | 2017 VY13 | 2017-Nov-25 | 2 LD | 10.5 | 18 | 2017 WH13 | 2017-Nov-26 | 1.7 LD | 11.4 | 16 | 2017 WQ13 | 2017-Nov-26 | 12.7 LD | 9.5 | 20 | 2017 WO16 | 2017-Nov-26 | 10.6 LD | 7.6 | 35 | 2017 WC14 | 2017-Nov-27 | 7.3 LD | 11.1 | 26 | 2017 WK15 | 2017-Nov-27 | 8.8 LD | 5.6 | 16 | 2017 WF15 | 2017-Nov-27 | 20.1 LD | 9.6 | 18 | 2017 WK1 | 2017-Nov-28 | 7.8 LD | 8 | 14 | 2017 WD28 | 2017-Nov-28 | 4.5 LD | 13.3 | 26 | 2017 WF16 | 2017-Nov-29 | 3.7 LD | 4.2 | 6 | 2017 WN15 | 2017-Nov-29 | 7.4 LD | 19.4 | 38 | 2017 WH28 | 2017-Nov-30 | 19.7 LD | 14.7 | 45 | 2017 WH2 | 2017-Nov-30 | 6.4 LD | 16.8 | 48 | 2008 WM61 | 2017-Dec-02 | 3.7 LD | 4.7 | 16 | 2017 WH16 | 2017-Dec-03 | 17.4 LD | 15.2 | 26 | 2017 WZ27 | 2017-Dec-03 | 13.6 LD | 4.2 | 11 | 2017 WS13 | 2017-Dec-05 | 9.5 LD | 11.3 | 42 | 2017 WF28 | 2017-Dec-06 | 17.6 LD | 7.6 | 21 | 2017 WV12 | 2017-Dec-09 | 3.5 LD | 10.6 | 25 | 2017 WE13 | 2017-Dec-12 | 16.4 LD | 5.4 | 26 | 2017 VS14 | 2017-Dec-12 | 15.9 LD | 2.8 | 15 | 2015 XX169 | 2017-Dec-14 | 9.7 LD | 6.3 | 11 | 2006 XY | 2017-Dec-14 | 3.4 LD | 4.9 | 56 | 2017 VT14 | 2017-Dec-17 | 3.8 LD | 10.4 | 105 | 2011 YD29 | 2017-Dec-19 | 17.6 LD | 7.7 | 20 | 2017 WX12 | 2017-Dec-21 | 10.1 LD | 11.5 | 124 | 2017 TS3 | 2017-Dec-22 | 18.1 LD | 10.2 | 136 | 418849 | 2017-Dec-22 | 15.3 LD | 17.4 | 257 | 2015 YQ1 | 2017-Dec-22 | 17.3 LD | 11.1 | 9 | 2017 WZ14 | 2017-Dec-24 | 7.6 LD | 4.9 | 32 | 2017 QL33 | 2017-Dec-30 | 13.3 LD | 8.2 | 191 | 2015 RT1 | 2018-Jan-02 | 19.7 LD | 9 | 30 | 2004 FH | 2018-Jan-10 | 20 LD | 8.5 | 26 | 306383 | 2018-Jan-22 | 14.4 LD | 17.4 | 178 | Notes: LD means "Lunar Distance." 1 LD = 384,401 km, the distance between Earth and the Moon. 1 LD also equals 0.00256 AU. MAG is the visual magnitude of the asteroid on the date of closest approach. | Cosmic Rays in the Atmosphere | Readers, thank you for your patience while we continue to develop this new section of Spaceweather.com. We've been working to streamline our data reduction, allowing us to post results from balloon flights much more rapidly, and we have developed a new data product, shown here: This plot displays radiation measurements not only in the stratosphere, but also at aviation altitudes. Dose rates are expessed as multiples of sea level. For instance, we see that boarding a plane that flies at 25,000 feet exposes passengers to dose rates ~10x higher than sea level. At 40,000 feet, the multiplier is closer to 50x. These measurements are made by our usual cosmic ray payload as it passes through aviation altitudes en route to the stratosphere over California. What is this all about? Approximately once a week, Spaceweather.com and the students of Earth to Sky Calculus fly space weather balloons to the stratosphere over California. These balloons are equipped with radiation sensors that detect cosmic rays, a surprisingly "down to Earth" form of space weather. Cosmic rays can seed clouds, trigger lightning, and penetrate commercial airplanes. Furthermore, there are studies ( #1, #2, #3, #4) linking cosmic rays with cardiac arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death in the general population. Our latest measurements show that cosmic rays are intensifying, with an increase of more than 13% since 2015: Why are cosmic rays intensifying? The main reason is the sun. Solar storm clouds such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) sweep aside cosmic rays when they pass by Earth. During Solar Maximum, CMEs are abundant and cosmic rays are held at bay. Now, however, the solar cycle is swinging toward Solar Minimum, allowing cosmic rays to return. Another reason could be the weakening of Earth's magnetic field, which helps protect us from deep-space radiation. The radiation sensors onboard our helium balloons detect X-rays and gamma-rays in the energy range 10 keV to 20 MeV. These energies span the range of medical X-ray machines and airport security scanners. The data points in the graph above correspond to the peak of the Reneger-Pfotzer maximum, which lies about 67,000 feet above central California. When cosmic rays crash into Earth's atmosphere, they produce a spray of secondary particles that is most intense at the entrance to the stratosphere. Physicists Eric Reneger and Georg Pfotzer discovered the maximum using balloons in the 1930s and it is what we are measuring today. | The official U.S. government space weather bureau | | The first place to look for information about sundogs, pillars, rainbows and related phenomena. | | Researchers call it a "Hubble for the sun." SDO is the most advanced solar observatory ever. | | 3D views of the sun from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory | | Realtime and archival images of the Sun from SOHO. | | from the NOAA Space Environment Center | | fun to read, but should be taken with a grain of salt! Forecasts looking ahead more than a few days are often wrong. | | from the NOAA Space Environment Center | | the underlying science of space weather | | Reviews here can help you to pick up best memory foam mattresses. | | These links help Spaceweather.com stay online. Thank you to our supporters! | | | | | | | | | | | | ©2017 Spaceweather.com. All rights reserved. This site is penned daily by Dr. Tony Phillips. | |